


Playing it Safe

by emilyevanston



Category: Playing It Cool (2014)
Genre: (not by main characters but it is something that is discovered), Angst, Children, Creepy twins, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Giving Birth, Humor, Language, Mentions of Sex, Personal Growth, Pregnancy, Recreational Drug Use, Sex Talk, Single Parents, animal cruelty, her is not the same her as in the movie, implied sex, me is a turd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 04:25:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16442936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyevanston/pseuds/emilyevanston
Summary: Three months after I broke up her wedding my life fell apart.  So I packed up and moved to San Diego to restart.  I’m a novelist now.  Or I’m trying to be.  I’ve fallen back into my old habits.  Writing all day, picking up women at night.  It’s comfortable.  I’m used to it.That new tenant across from me though.  She has kids.   Might not be the best idea I’ve ever had, but I might see what’s up with her.





	1. The Mom

I bet you expected me to be married to her now.  Settled down?  Maybe we’d have started a family?   What a joke.  I thought I was in love.  Turns out I was just in the middle of a giant mistake.   We lasted exactly three months.  

The first month was all hot sex and goo-goo eyes.  I thought damn,  _this_ is what love is.  I told everyone and anyone who would listen.  No one’s love was as true and down to Earth as mine.  No one else could possibly understand what it was really like to be in love.  I was the one in love.  I was the expert.  

The second was all apathy.  Yeah.  I guess I still love her.  She’s the one who’s here right?  She left her fiancé for me so I had to love her.  She had to love me too.  I guess.  Who cares really?  I don’t hate her.  So that’s something.  We just were.

The third we fought constantly.  She cheated on me.  I cheated on her.  She pulled out the ‘I left my fiancé because of you’ card.  All.  The.  Time.  We were both angry with each other constantly.  Eventually, we just didn’t care anymore.

Then we split.

It was inevitable. After that, I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.  Everything felt forced.  Like the life I was living wasn’t my own anymore.  I was just floating along, not engaging with anyone anymore.  All these people who I once thought of as my family was just people who I had to be around out of social obligation.

When Granddad died. It was peaceful.  He just slipped off in his sleep.  I thought I dealt with it.  I thought I was okay.  When she left it made me realize I had just used her to distract me from that.

That changed everything.  It broke me.  I didn’t leave my apartment at all for a month.  I didn’t wash.  The others were scared to come by and see me. I didn’t feel sorry about it.  Only Scott really stuck with me.  It was obvious he was reluctant about it.  

Grief is strange. It can dominate everything about you, and then one day you are still sad but it doesn’t own you anymore.  I woke up, showered and realized something.  I didn’t want to be in LA anymore.  So I packed up and left.  

I didn’t go too far, just far enough that I could reset.  I could still go see my friends if I wanted to, but it took just enough effort that I would have space to breathe.

I found a place in San Diego.  In an apartment complex that was relatively new close to the beach.  It was one of those complexes where all the apartments circle a large courtyard that you need to pass through to get inside. Mine was a ground floor, which sucked because the people above me seemed to own a small herd of water buffalo.  But it was new.  I could have a do-over.  

Which is exactly what I did.  I am a novelist now.  I write books about dystopian futures where no one is allowed to love any more.  I also fell back into my old comfortable habits.  There were lots of new places for me to find women to fuck.

If you have certain skill sets, it’s a shame to waste them.

I fell into a pattern.  I’d work through the morning in my boxers at home.  Then I’d go sit in the Starbucks by the beach and write from there. Sometimes that was where I picked up.  I’d see some girl come in alone,  I’d make some joke about pumpkin spice being a gift from God. That was usually enough.  Otherwise, I’d find a bar.  Usually, the ones down in the Gaslights were good.   Seaport Village was another good spot.  Drunk tourists.  You didn’t have to worry about drunk tourists hanging around.  You just needed to make them believe that what you had to offer was part of the tourist experience.  

And that’s how it went until she moved in.

She moved in about a month after I did.  In the apartment opposite mine.  She was hot in that, 'I kind of know I am but I don’t like to draw attention to it’ way.  Dark hair, light eyes.  She wore oversized t-shirts over jeans-shorts and sandals.  I thought, hey maybe we could work out a mutually beneficial relationship.  It would have to be clearly defined fuck buddies only, but it could work.  Then I wouldn’t have to go out so often.  Nothing wrong with being lazy from time to time.

She was guiding two men carrying a couch through her front patio when a small girl, maybe four years old came running up.  Ugh.  Please be a niece please be a niece.

“Mommy!  I’m hungry.”  The little devil spawn said.

Great.  She’s a parent.  Although … This doesn’t have to change anything.  Bored housewife?  No pressure to commit.  I’ll take care of her needs during the day while hubby is out.

I let her settle in.  These things take time.  Married women can take a little to convince.  I’d let her see what I was capable of.  I started bringing women home.  I never did that normally.  If she could see the string of women, she’d know I was safe.  I wasn’t looking to end her marriage.  I just wanted a good time.

In the mornings, I’d sit out in the courtyard smoking and nursing a coffee waiting for her to come out with her kids when she took them to daycare.  That’s right  _kids_. Plural.  There were two of the horrible things. Twins.  Like in the Shining.  They had really appropriate names too. Carrie and Christine.  The telekinetic and the murder car.  

They came over to me, hand in hand and looked up.  I looked over to the alcove that housed the elevator expecting a wave of blood to pour out.

“Those fings are bad for you, dummy.”  Thing one said.

“Yeah, dummy.” Thing two agreed.

I rolled my eyes. “Hopefully they’ll kill me.  That would be nice wouldn’t it?”  

“Den you can be a ghost!”

“You can haunt us.”

“Carrie! Christine!  Leave that poor man alone.”  She called.  She gave me a look that said 'sorry’ but also 'I could not care less about you or your feelings’.  I was impressed.

I noticed at night, around 10 she’d sit out in the courtyard smoking a joint.  Another thing I was impressed with.  She gave not a single shit if any of the neighbors cared about her using drugs in a public area.  She’d just sit outside of her gate on one of the benches getting high, and watching the sky.  

I’d time either bringing girls home or chasing them off while she was there.  Tonight I’d decided for the chase off.  I told the girl that she needed to go home because I had work in the morning.  She was  _pissed_. She screamed at me and slapped me in the face before storming out of the complex.  

I looked over to where she was sitting.  She had a smirk on her face. She didn’t even try to hide the fact she’d been watching the drama unfold.  I went and sat beside her.  She offered me the joint.  I took it and inhaled deeply.

“Does that one have a name?”  She asked.

I shrugged.   “How should I know?”

She laughed.  “Charming.  Very charming.”

“Why do you sit out here every night smoking pot?”  I asked handing her the joint back.  Letting my head get all light and floaty.

“I don’t sleep well.  This helps.”  She said.  I looked at her waiting for her to expand, but she didn’t.

“Yeah, I don’t know I’d sleep well if I had to deal with that demon spawn of yours.”  I teased.

She laughed.  It sounded genuine.  Not offended on behalf of her progeny.  Just a pleasant, full laughter.

“They aren’t so bad.  Keep me on my toes.”  She said.

“I haven’t seen your husband around at all.  Where is he?”  I asked.

She sighed.  “I don’t have one.”

Fuck. Single mom.  This wasn’t going to work at all.  

Ugh. This was actually gross.   Now I don’t even want to talk to her anymore. Single moms are the ones who get clingy the fastest.  Throwing out the 'L’ word as quickly as possible in the hopes you can 'make their family whole’ or at the very least 'show their ex they’ve moved on’.  

“Boyfriend?” I pressed.  Please have a boyfriend.  Please have a boyfriend.

She shook her head and offered me the joint again.  “Afraid not.” She exhaled her lungful of smoke and we sat quietly for a minute. “So what do you do, that you’re able to spy on me all day.”

“I haven’t been …”

“Uh huh.”  She said cutting me off.  

I watched her for a moment.  She just sat looking at me.  Waiting for an answer.  “I write.  I used to write screenplays.  I’ve moved on to novels.”  I said.

“Of course.  A writer.  I should have guessed.”  She said.  He voice was so laced in contempt I suddenly felt the need to defend myself.

“Yeah? Well, what do you do?”

She looked like a deer in headlights for just a split second.  “I’m a vet.  I work with animals.”  She answered quickly.

I grimaced.  Animals too.   Good god.  I can’t believe I even considered hitting on her.  I’d have her mooning around my apartment like a lost puppy.  She probably  _loved_  lost puppies.  I bet her house was full of them.

“Not all of us can be vets,” I said defensively.  

“No. Not all of us can be.”  She agreed.   “What do you write?”

“Dystopian Future stuff mostly.  My latest one is called 'A World Without’. It’s about a future where love has been banned.”

“Sounds interesting.”  She said, but something passed over her features that said otherwise.

“Yeah, it’s probably shit.”

She laughed.  “Oh, he’s self-aware.  Very nice.”

“Hey! Fuck you!”  I snapped.  I did admire her though.  She wasn’t bitter and done with the world the way Mallory had been, but she wasn’t afraid of offending me.

We sat silently again.   Passing the joint between us.  

“What’s with all the girls?  Overcompensating for something?” She asked breaking the silence.

“Yeah. I overcompensate for having a massive dick.”  I said.  “What’s with the no-boyfriend?  When was the last time you got laid?”

She shrugged.  “It’s been quite a while.”  She wasn’t embarrassed.  Nor did she sound upset about it.  Just matter of fact.  I haven’t had sex for quite a while.

“How much of a while?”  I asked.

“Couple of years.”  

My mouth actually dropped open.  I stared at her slacked jawed.  She reached over and pushed my chin up with her index finger.

“I could help you out if you like.  Throw you a bone.  Just as long as you didn’t get all needy on me.  One time thing only.”   I offered.

She laughed and stood up.  “Not even with someone else’s vagina.”  She said handing me the last of the joint.  “I’m going inside.  Don’t leave that roach lying around.  Kids play out here.”

She disappeared inside.  I wasn’t sure if I should feel offended or relieved.


	2. Motivations

Have you ever noticed how when you love something you can easily not think about it, but when you hate it it just fills your mind all the time?

I was repelled by her.  Everything about her life was just repellent to me.  Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about her.  I kept doing the things that I knew would put me in contact with her.  I still sat out waiting for her to leave in the morning.  I started bringing out coffee for her too.  I’d make it in a travel mug.  She’d grab it as she walked past, usually ruffling my hair as she went.  She’d leave the washed mug on my fence when she got home from work.

Her kids.  Where do I even start?   I called them devil spawn before.  If their father wasn’t actually Lucifer ruler of Hell, Lord of the underworld, I will eat my fucking hat.  They were four fucking years old and they terrified me.  They would stand holding hands and just stare at me while they sang songs in monotone.  I don’t know where they fucking heard it, maybe she taught it to them to mess with me, but they sang that nursery rhyme from Nightmare on Elm Street.  All. The. Fucking.  Time.  You know the one.  'One,  two, Freddy’s coming for you.  Three, four, you better lock the door.’  You get the idea.  When they were done, they’d run off back inside giggling.  No wonder she smoked pot at night.

In the morning, just before she was ready to take them to daycare, they’d come out and talk to me.  It would start off innocent enough. For example:

Thing one:  What do you do at daytime?

Me:  I write stories.

Thing two: What kind of stowies?  Like faiwy stowies?

Me:  More grown-up stories.

Thing one and two:  Maybe you can tell us stowies when you dead and a ghost.

Basically, they were creepy as hell is what I’m getting at here.

Work stuff was weird.  I had a publishing company interested in ‘A World Without’ but they sent back feedback.

_'We are excited for the_ _opportunity_ _to work with such a potentially brilliant up, and coming author.  Especially one with their names on such popular screenplays as_ _'The Murder Games’ and 'Total Annihilation’._

_Regarding the purchase of 'A World Without’ this publication house is very interested, however, there is one brief issue we have with the manuscript.  For a story solely centered around the concept of love, there is_ _a serious_ _lack of female characters.   Besides the romantic interest, there is only one to be found in the entire document, and she falls into the trope of_ _'bit_ _t_ _er, cynical female friend’.  The fact she also was in love with the main protagonist was troublesome._

_If you could include more female characters, perhaps some who aren’t in love with the main protagonist, we would be happy to go into contracts with you.’_

So that was a thing.  How could I not have included more than two female characters?  I’m with women more than I am with men these days.  Sure I don’t talk to any of them much, but surely I would have included more than two.  

I spent a week reading over the manuscript.  Pawing over every single word I’d written.  They were right.  No women.  Just 'Love Interest’ and 'Cynical Friend’.  What the hell was wrong with me?

The problem was, I wasn’t sure how to change it.  How do you write female characters?  I know how to pick which women to hit on for an 80% likelihood of getting laid.  I knew what to say to these women to get them to put out.  Aside from that, what do women think about?  What do they do?

Another thing to blame my mother for I guess.

I started asking the women I picked up about their motivation.  I mean I wasn’t an idiot, I’d ask  _after_ we did the deed.  I’d ask them why they decided to come home with me. What did they think about on an average day?  Where did they see their life going?

Things sometimes have unintended consequences.  I asked these questions, and while I didn’t get the answers I wanted, I did now have a sure fire way to get rid of women from my apartment.  They would flee in terror.  It was quite a useful device in the end.  Just not what I needed most.

It was ten o'clock.  I was just saying goodnight to … someone.  This one had said she had an early start, thank god.  That always saves some trouble.  She was sitting in her usual spot just lighting up her nightly joint.  

I strolled over.

“Does this one have a name?”  She asked handing me the joint as I took a seat beside her.

“Yeah.  Wait.  I actually got this one’s number because she did this fucking unreal thing with her tongue.”  

She pulled a disgusted face.  

I scrolled through my phone looking for the girl’s number.   “No. Wait.  I just listed her as 'Tongue Thing’.  I guess she doesn’t have a name.”  I said, shrugging and putting my phone away.  I took a draw on the joint and handed it back to her.

“Who hurt you?”  She asked.

“My mother.  She moved to Chile when I was eight and dumped me on my granddad.”  I answered.  She looked at me horrified.   I suddenly felt quite smug.  Looks like your mother abandoning you  _did_ have some useful outcomes after all.

“I’m sorry.  I can’t believe a mother would do that to her own kid.  Don’t have them if you don’t want them.”  She said putting her hand on my knee.  I stared at it until she took it away again and shrugged.

“Where’s your brat’s dad then?  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him around.”  I said.  Still wallowing in my own self-satisfaction of affecting her like that.

“He died.  Two years ago.”  She said.  Just simply.  Not looking for sympathy or a shoulder to cry on.  Matter-of-fact, the guy who should be helping me raise my children died two years ago.  This time it was my turn to look mortified.  She took the joint from me while I stared at her open-mouthed.  She took a draw and pushed my jaw closed with her index finger.

“I’m sorry.  That really sucks.”  I said.

She laughed.  It was hollow and broken.  I knew that sound.  “You’re right, it does really suck.  It really, really sucks.”  

“I know it’s not the same, but my Granddad died, like three months ago.  He raised me, so it was kind of more like my dad.  We were really close.  It changed me.”  I said.

“Death comes for us all I guess.”  She said.  The back of her hand touched the back of mine, and we laced our fingers together for a second.

“Now I know where your kids get it,”  I said.

She looked at me daring me to continue.  “Where my kids get what?”

I shook my head and laughed.  “Nothing.  Nothing!”

We sat quietly for a moment.  I thought about life and death.  How the death of people we had both loved had brought us both to this very spot at this very time.   Then I mentally slapped myself for being such an emo bitch.

“So, I have a problem,”  I said taking the joint from her again.

“I already knew that.”  She said.

I chose to ignore her.  “I wrote this book.  A publishing house is interested in it.  They said the only problem was there were not enough female characters.”

“So add some.  You seem to have no shortage of supply of women you could draw inspiration from.”  She said.

I looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. You’re right.   That was naive of me.”  She laughed.  “Still, what’s the problem here?”

“I have no idea how to write women.  I put two in my novel, and they were both in love with the lead.  Now that doesn’t seem right does it?”

“If the lead is anything like you, it doesn’t seem right at all.” She teased.

I bumped against her in a familiar way that seemed way too familiar considering how little we’d actually spoken to each other.  How was it that I felt so completely comfortable with this woman who’s life quite frankly, disgusted me?  It was like, despite the fact I knew nothing about her, I had known her all my life.  

“What motivates women?”  I asked.  “What do they think about?”

She laughed and I took a pull on the joint.  “When you write a male character, what do you do?”

I shrugged and handed the cigarette back to her.  She took a draw and watched me.  I shrugged.  “I don’t really know.  I think about a situation, and then the character just sort of flows out of me.  If I’m needing to hit tropes that’s a little easier.  Those are all there to just draw from in media.  But if it’s someone more personal. That just happens.”

“So do that.  And then, instead of saying he, say she.”  

I looked at her and laughed.  “That doesn’t sound right.”

She shook her head and elbowed me.   “Fine.  Don’t believe me. You can interview me about all the things that go on in my head if you want.  But people are individuals.  And individuals are motivated by different things.”

“Good thing you’re a vet and not a writer,”  I said.  

“Yeah.  I guess so.”

“Can I come around on the weekend and interview you?”  I asked.

She looked at me perplexed.  “I didn’t actually …”

“Please,”  I begged.  “I don’t really know anyone else here.”

“Sure.  Okay.  Come over on Saturday.  You can have lunch.”  She said.   She had the sound of someone who was trapped and couldn’t see there way out.   I didn’t care.  As long as I could write my book.

“Will the devil spawn be there?”  

She laughed.  “Where else would they be?”

“Ugh.  Right.  I guess that’s fine.”  I said.  “It’s not a date though.  Just to be clear.  I’ll eat your food.  I just need help with the book.  I don’t want that.”  I waved my hands at her and then in the direction of her apartment.

She laughed and took a drag on the joint.  “Of course not.  I don’t want that.”  She waved her hands at me.  “Either.”

“I’ll still fuck you, just one time if you want.  Open offer.  Two years is a long time.  Must be hard.”

She got up and handed me the joint.  “Not even if you were wearing a regular condom over a full body condom.”  She ruffled my hair. “Don’t leave the roach lying around.  Kids play out here.”

I waved as she headed back inside.  

This time I was offended.


	3. False Impressions

The thing about first impressions is you don’t get more than one.  I had thought that her being a single mother would be the worst thing in the world.  That we would have nothing in common and spending any time with her would be like my worst nightmare come to life.  I had thought that those twins were the creepiest kids in the world.  That having to be around them would be like waking up in a horror movie and not being able to escape.

I was wrong.

I went over to her apartment at midday.  I don’t know why, but I didn’t knock.  I just let myself in.  She was unpacking some groceries, and the spawn were sitting on the ground in the lounge room building something out of Lego.  That big Lego meant for toddlers.

Everyone looked up at me when I came in, but went straight back to doing what they were doing, like I walked into their apartment all the time.

“Can I help you with that?”  I asked approaching the kitchen counter, my hands in my pockets.

She looked up and smiled at me.  “You don’t know where anything goes?”  She said.

“I know cold things go in the fridge and really cold things go in the freezer.”  I pushed.

She shrugged and waved at the bags on the floor.  We unpacked the bags in silence.  When everything was away she pushed me back out of the kitchen and pulled salad ingredients and deli meats from the fridge.  While she cut vegetables the spawn came over hand in hand. They stood in front of me and started singing that song.

“One, two; Freddy’s coming for you.   Three, four; better lock the door.”  That one.

When then finished I gave them an awkward thumbs up.  

“Okay, girls go put on a movie.  I’ll bring you some lunch in a second.”

“Yes, mama.”  They said in unison and went and sat down in front of the TV.

“Why do they do that?”  I asked.   “Who taught them that creepy fucking song?”

She burst out laughing.  “I did.  They had this tendency to sing in that weird monotone together.  Which is creepy as hell.  It freaked my brother out. So I taught them that one.   Watching him squirm provides me with endless depths of enjoyment.”

“You’re really quite evil, aren’t you?”  I asked.  I was impressed.  Not many people would use their kids in such a hilarious, evil fashion as that.

“I try.”

She made the spawn little finger sandwiches with banana and peanut butter on them, which she cut into stars and hears with cookie cutters.  She gave it to them on a tray each with a plastic tumbler full of milk and carrot sticks.

She then made salad wraps for us, which she served with chips and a beer.  When she put the wraps together she would indicate to each ingredient with her knife and wait for me to nod or shake my head. It was oddly domestic.  I was supposed to hate it, right?  I don’t even remember ever being part of something so domestic.  Not even when I was a kid and my mom was still around.  Was this why people had families?  To have someone to just make sandwiches with?

We sat at the counter and ate.

“I can’t remember when I last ate something this healthy,”  I said through a mouthful of the wrap.  “Definitely not since I moved to San Diego.  I’ve been living off, Starbucks, Papa Johns and In and Out since I got here.”

“Oh my god!  That’s terrible.  I usually spend Sunday morning cooking for the rest of the week.  Then I take the girls to the beach.  You should come over sometime and take some stuff home with you.  Otherwise, you’re going to get scurvy or something.”

Yeah.  So I probably needed to back right off about now.  That was way too boyfriend and girlfriend.  Spending the morning cooking. Also, what was with mentioning going to the beach?  Was that an invitation too.   Was she having visions of the four of us spending time building sand castles and splashing in the water?  Maybe at the end of the day, we’d come back here.  The spawn would be exhausted and we’d put them to bed.  And then what?  We spend the rest of the night fucking?

Well, it was obviously what I was thinking about.  I had to shake that shit out of there.  I did  _not_ want that.  Not in any way, shape or form.

“So, I needed to ask you some questions,”  I said quickly changing the subject.

She shook her head.  “I really think you’re coming at this from the wrong angle.”

“I am coming from the only angle I know,”  I said.

She burst out laughing.   “That sounded really dirty.  Try again.”

No.  

No. Not this way.  This wasn’t happening.  Shake it off.

“Please.  It’s all I can think to do.”

She sighed and gestured for me to continue.  I drilled her with questions.  Asking; what got her up in the morning.  Why she chose the job she had.  What she liked doing with her free time.  What her friends were like.  What she enjoyed being around them.  

I went straight home after I was done and wrote.  I rewrote the whole book.  It took weeks and weeks.  During that time I avoided talking to her.  I started either not bringing girls back to my place or I timed it so we arrived while she was out smoking, so I had an excuse not to stop.

Even with this looming concern that she was trying to convince me to be this boyfriend/father figure.  I couldn’t quite bring myself to avoid her completely.  I felt like she might be my only actual friend here.  Which was depressing really given that I barely even knew her.

I still felt compelled to sit out in the morning with her coffee. She started packing me a lunch.  She’d bring it in a paper bag. Sometimes it was sandwiches or paninis.  Sometimes it was something I had to heat up like lasagna or paella.  When it was hot, it came in a Tupperware container.  I’d eat, wash the container, leave it on my fence and she’d switch the container for my travel mug.  She always ruffled my hair after we switched her coffee for my lunch.  It was tradition.

I also started looking forward to talking to the spawn.  Their weird little morbid fascination with me being dead was becoming … endearing?  Is that the word I’m looking for?  In any case, I liked it.  I liked hearing the things they had planned for my ghost to do for them.  Sometimes it was playing Lego.  Sometimes it was to scare boys away from them at daycare.  Sometimes it was to talk to their dad.  

You can only avoid people for so long.  I started missing our late night talks.  I picked up a girl in the Gaslights.  She was a tourist from Germany.  She said she loved my eyes.  That she would  _love_ to come back to my place but she couldn’t stay the night because she was traveling with her friends and they’d get worried.  It was perfect really.

She said goodnight at eight minutes past ten.  She was sitting watching, rolling her joint.  I came and sat next to her.

“Does that one have a name?”  She asked.

“Yes.  It was … Emma?  Emily?  Emery?”  I said.  “Ah shit. She wrote it down for me.”  I fished a piece of paper out of my pocket.  “Jessica?  That doesn’t sound right.”

She burst out laughing.

I took the half-formed joint from her hand and finished rolling it. I lit it and took a deep draw.   She looked me over like she was assessing me.  Figuring out what the right thing to say was.

“I scared you when you were over right?  When I said you should come hang out while I cook?”

I looked at her and handed her the joint.  She drew in a lung full of smoke and held it.

“Yeah.  I guess so.   I don’t want that.  I tried the girlfriend thing.  It wasn’t me.  Kids are definitely not me.  None of that’s me.”

She tried to hold back laughter while she held the smoke in her lungs, but couldn’t quite manage it.  She ended up doubled over coughing.  I pounded her on the back.

“Sorry.”  She said, wheezing.  “I don’t want a boyfriend either.  Just so you know.  If I wanted a boyfriend, I’d have one. I’ve had offers.  I’m done with that.  Even if I did want that.  Not from you.  I have kids.  You’re not exactly what I’d call a good influence.  More; cautionary tale.”

Cautionary tale.  I liked that.  I was a cautionary tale.  My whole life was a colossal fuck up.   _‘Look kids.  See that guy.  Don’t be that guy.’_

“Then why did you ask me around?  Why bring up the beach?”  I asked

“I might not want a romantic relationship.  I could use a friend. You look like you could use one too.”  She offered me the joint.  I took it, just holding it between my fingers.

“Yeah.  I guess I could.  We don’t exactly have a lot in common though.”  I said.

She laughed and ruffled my hair.  “No.  We don’t.  Still …” She shrugged.  I knew what she meant.  There was something there.  It was nice.  Comfortable.

We sat in silence for a little while.  Not even actually smoking. The joint eventually went out from lack of use and we had to light it again.  

“So why don’t you want a boyfriend?  You obviously had that and it worked in the past.”  I asked.

She released a lungful of smoke and looked off into the sky.  “You said it.  I had that.  You know how people talk of soul mates?  How that’s all kind of bullshit?”

I nodded.  It was bullshit.  How could there just be one person destined to be with you?  What if that person was born in Africa and you’re here in San Diego, smoking pot in public with a single mom of demon twins?

“Well, even though it’s complete bullshit, I think that’s who he was.  He was my other half.  We weren’t the same person like you sometimes see with couples.   He was my complimentary person.  The green to my red.  He was good and kind and selfless.  He was an amazing father.  The best lover I’ve ever had.  He encouraged me to chase my dreams, and supported me when they didn’t play out how I expected.  I loved him with every single fiber of my being.  And he died.  How do you replace that with someone else?”

Tears and formed in her eyes and she wiped them away, not looking at me.  I put my arm around her shoulders.  

“So you’ve just given up?”  I asked.  

“On that yes.  It’s not the only thing.  I have Christine and Carrie.  My work.  Family.”

“Friends?”

“Yes.  That too.”  She smiled at me and passed me the joint. “What about you?  Why the string of women and the fear of settling down?”

“Part of it was fear of rejection.  My mom leaving really fucked me up.  But I also tried it.  I met the girl who gave me the spark you read about.  Who I couldn’t stop thinking about.  It burnt out so fast and so badly.  I don’t think I’m meant for that kind of thing.”

“Maybe that TV definition of love isn’t what love actually is?” She suggested.

“Then I have no idea what it is, and I’m not sure I’d recognize it if I had it.”  

That’s me; talking in tropes and cliché.  

She took my hand in hers and squeezed it just briefly before taking her hand away.

“I remember what her name was.  It was Jessi, but she pronounced it with a Y.  Like Yessi.”  I said throwing my hands in the air.

She laughed.  

“Don’t you miss sex?”  I asked

“Yeah.  I’m not the kind of person who can just sleep around though.  I need more than that.”  She said.  “I have a vibrator. It’s enough.”

“I’ll have sex with you if you want.”  

She stood up, handed me the joint, and ran her fingers across my scalp.  “Not even if you dipped your dick in bleach first and sprayed yourself down with industrial strength bug spray.”  She walked over to her gate and turned back to me.  “Don’t leave …”

“The Roach.  Kids.  I’m on it.”

She smiled at me and went inside.  This time, I just felt comfortable.


	4. Coping Mechanisms

Everyone has coping mechanisms when faced with rejection.  Mine had always been alcohol and sex.  Usually at the same time.  Drunk, can’t remember how you got here sex was the best.

Now it seemed to be lying on her couch watching ‘Watership Down’ with the twins.  You know that movie about the bunnies who all like murdering each other?  The twins were obsessed with it.  They watched it on a loop until she couldn’t take it anymore and she’d switch it off and make them go be creepy in the garden.

I’d sent my manuscript back with new female characters added on to have it returned to me with this a month later with this.

’ _Thank you for taking our suggestions for adding more female characters to the novel seriously.  We do however have some questions.  Have you ever met a woman before?_ _Do you know anything at all about people?  The new characters are all extremely two dimensional and all seem to be motivated by children.  Can we suggest fleshing the characters out a little?  Make them unique individuals?_

 _We look forward to working with you…_ _’_ Blah, blah, blah.

I couldn’t do it.  I’m not a writer at all.  I don’t know people.  I don’t know human nature.  I definitely don’t know women.  It’s why I was alone in San Diego and my only friend was the woman whose lap my head was lying on.  She was the only person I knew any more, yet all I knew about her was only how she made  _me_  feel.

“What am I gonna do?”  I cried grabbing my head in my hands.

“Shh … dummy.  We’re watching the bunnies.”  Christine said.

She picked up the remote and turned off the TV.  “How about you two go out and get some air for a minute.”

“But mommy!”  They cried in unison.  

“No, buts.  Out you go monsters.”

The twins both ran out the front roaring like monsters.   I smiled as I watched them go.  

“What’s the problem?”  She asked looking down at me.

“I’m a writer,”  I said.

“So you say.”

“I’m a writer.    _I’m a writer!”_

“Okay.  So?”  

I sat up and put my head between my legs.  “I’m not a writer.”

“You wrote things.  Doesn’t that make you a writer?”

“I have no idea how to write women.  They’re two dimensional and are all fueled by the exact same motivation.”  

She rubbed my back.  “Would you like me to read it?  Tell you what I think?”

I gave her the most incredulous look I could summon up.  “You’re a vet.”

She shoved me.  “Oh, I forgot. I totally didn’t need to learn how to read to get that degree.”

“It’s not the same thing,”  I whined.  

“Will it hurt for me to read it?”  

She was right.  She usually was.  I should have listened when she told me not to take her experience as the only experience.  I’d listen this time.  I got up went to my apartment and grabbed the manuscripts.  I took both of them actually.  The original and the one with more women.  I sulked back to her place and threw them on the coffee table, collapsing back onto the couch.  

“Stop sulking.”  She said.  

I didn’t.

I sulked the whole three weeks it took her to get through both manuscripts.  I still went out of course.  The sex was sulky sex. Not very good.  Better than none I suppose.

What do you do when you think you’ve lost complete direction in your life?  If I’m not a writer who am I?  I have no friends, no family, no job.  She is the only one I have.  That’s sad, isn’t it?  Two broken people given up on love and circling the drain together.

She was doing her cook for the whole week routine.  Carrie was sick. She had an inner ear infection.  She didn’t want to be put down so I held her while she slept and her mother cooked.  Christine sat in front of the TV watching fucking 'Watership Down’ again.

“You know what I think of your story?”  She asked.

“Don’t call it my story,”  I whined.

“Oh, I’m sorry.  Your novel.  Your masterpiece.”  

I rolled my eyes at her and she threw a cherry tomato at my head. “Hey, I’m holding your demon spawn here,”  I said.  “What do you think of it?”

“I think if you changed the gender pronouns of the protagonist to she and her name from Anthony to Andrea.  And if you made it so the two other female characters weren’t in love with her at all, they were just concerned about helping the other people in the society to protect their love.  You’d have a pretty fucking epic story that that publishing house would be happy to buy.”

“I can’t just change the main guy to a girl.  He’s a guy.”  

I could not stop whining today.  Needed to snap out of that habit. My life wasn’t over yet.  Just listen to her.

“So?  There’s nothing that screams dude about him to me.  Could easily go either way.  Why not just try it and see?”

“Ugh fine.”  I groaned.

“Fine.”

“Fine!”  I almost yelled that one.  Carrie stirred in my arms. She glared at me.  “Shit, sorry.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“Yeah, okay.”  I sulked.

“You better give me writing credit.”  

I laughed.  “Sure if they buy this piece of shit, I’ll give you credit.”

“Dedicate it to me.”  She grinned.

“What?”

“You heard me.  Dedicate it to me.”

I rolled my eyes.  “Yeah, okay.  It will say; 'To that skank across from me.  Your demon spawn scare the shit out of me.  Here have a book.'”

She laughed and threw another tomato.  “It had better.”

I left the three of them in the afternoon.  With Carrie sick, we weren’t going to do the regular trip to the beach and get ice cream thing we’d fallen into.  I picked up a girl at the Farmer’s Market of all places.  

I came outside at 10 to see her in her usual spot.  She waved me over.  

“No girl today?”  She asked.

“Yeah, she’s sleeping.”  

She looked at me wide-eyed and I took the joint out of her hand. “That’s new.   And does she have a name?”

“Yes.  It’s Tess.”   I took a draw and leaned back into the bench looking up at the sky.

“I’m impressed.  Do you think you’ll see Tess again?”

I laughed.  “No.  Have we met?”

“Yes, and the guy I met never knows anyone’s name.  Especially not girls he has brought home.”

I shrugged.  I would have put that on her.  The fact she always asked.  But that wasn’t it.  Something was different.  It just felt wrong to sleep with her without knowing her name.   It’s why I’d let her sleep too.  I didn’t want to chase them off anymore.  It was gross.

“I kind of feel like my baby boy is growing up.  What will I do when you leave the nest?”  She teased.

“Keep it up and I won’t ask the next one’s name.  And I’ll film us and text it to you.”

“You say that like I wouldn’t use it to masturbate to.”  

Fuck she was quick.  I started giggling uncontrollably.  She joined in and we just clutched at each other in complete high person hysterics.  

We finally managed to get control of ourselves and we sat staring up, passing the joint between us.  I had one of those sudden realizations that even though she was the only friend I had here, and I spent most of her free time with her, I still barely knew who she was.

“Besides your brother do you have any other siblings?”  I asked.

Her head rolled to the side and she stared at me.  “No, just him.”

“Is he older or younger?”

She reached her hand up and touched my nose.  “He’s older.  He is a bit like you actually.  Never wanting to settle down.  Creeped out by Carrie and Christine but really he loves them.”

“Are your parents still alive?”  

“My dad is.  My mum died when I was in high school.  She had cancer.”

“How did your husband die?”  

She looked away from me and took a long draw on the joint.

“Sorry,”  I said.  I didn’t want to hurt her.  Just know her. “You don’t have to answer.”

She shook her head slowly.  “No.  It’s okay.  He took the girls to the corner store to pick up some things.  I was cooking and we were missing some ingredients.  I never planned things very well back then. Just cooked what I felt like at the time.  A guy came in and held up the place.  He tried to calm him down.  Tell him that they were all going to co-operate.  But the guy was on meth, and just looped out of his head.  He shot him and the clerk.  And then he shot himself.  Carrie and Chrissy were all by themselves with their dead dad, and two other dead men until someone else came into the store. I got a call from the police.  I had to get them from the hospital.”

She was shaking.  I grabbed her and pulled her against me, just holding her.  She didn’t cry though.  It was like she’d used up all her tears for that particular story.

“Is that why the girls are so preoccupied with death?”  I asked stroking my fingers through her hair.

“I think so.  The psychiatrists said it was normal for them. They’d grow out of it eventually.”  She pulled away from me and took another draw on the joint.  “It’s also why I do this.  Night is when I visit it.  This lets me sleep despite those thoughts.”

“I’m sorry,”  I said.

What a stupid thing to say.  What was I apologizing for exactly? Him dying?  How violent it was?  The fact the girls were there?  The fact she needed drugs to sleep at night any more?  Or just bringing it up?  Surely there is a better way of telling someone that you wish they hadn’t had to go through something like that.  That you grieved for them.  That you would be here for them.

“Life is fucked.  Death comes for us all.”  She said.  It was hollow.  Like it was her life mantra but she hated it.  
We turned out heads to face each other again.  I stared into her eyes.  I couldn’t quite pinpoint the color.   I traced my fingers over her cheek.   I wanted to give her something.  Something to get her mind off her husband’s death because I’d been such a fuck head in bringing it up.  I had nothing to offer though.  I could write her a story? That wouldn’t help right now though.

“Have sex with me.”  I breathed.

She laughed and stood up.  “Good night, idiot.”  She said ruffling my hair.  She went back inside without turning back.

This time, I just felt sad.


	5. The Inevitability of Change

Often you’ll see things a certain way, and that way is just the truth even when it isn’t.  Maybe it was never the truth.  You just wanted it to be.  Maybe it started out as being the truth and things changed and you weren’t quick enough to keep up.  

I re-wrote my novel changing the things she had told me to.  It didn’t take too long.  Two or three weeks maybe.  Things just went along as they always do.  I spent my nights bringing home girls, and my weekends with her.  

I started just enjoying not being me.  Does that make sense?  With her, I was some other person.  Someone I liked.  I was still kind of me I guess.  I was there.  I just felt I didn’t have to try to be anyone with her.  I just could be.  She took me at my self-absorbed worst and my excitable best.  

Picking up girls changed too.  I didn’t like lying to them anymore. I’d still do it if I had to.  The lying had always bothered me to be honest, but I really like sex.  I was just trying a lot harder to not have to lie to do it.  Made picking up  _so much work._

While I waited to hear back from the publisher Scott came down to visit.  I hadn’t actually seen any of them since I had left LA, but I still considered Scott my closest friend.  He had always been the one who stood by my side no matter what.  

We spent the day catching up down by the beach in one of the many bars that line the main street.  Everyone had moved on and up in LA without me there.  Mallory was engaged to her friend date.  Lyle had bought a house.  Samson had been put on as a regular writer for some sitcom.  Even Scott was moving in with the Terminator fan.  I had left LA thinking they were holding me down in my life.  Turns out, it had been the other way around.  I was the cynical asshole who made them doubt their life decisions.  I’d be laboring under the assumption it had been the other way around.

After the bar, Scott and I went back to my place.  He had a look through my novel while I stared out the window subconsciously waiting for her to get home.

Scott put the book down.  “She told you to make these changes?” Scott asked.

“Yeah.  Stupid right.  That main character is totally a dude.”  
Scott shook his head.  “It’s really good.  It makes me think of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ but with a really sweet love story underneath.  I really, really like it.”

I rolled my eyes and collapsed back on the couch.

“So, what are you two?  Dating?  Are you in love with her?” Scott asked.  He did it in that hesitant way of his.  So full of hope.  So terrified of being destroyed.

I rolled my eyes.  “No.”  I couldn’t keep the disgust from my voice.

“You just talk about her a lot.”

“She’s like my only regular human contact.  She’s bound to come up.”

“Yeah, but the  _way_ you talk about her.”  

“Ugh.  She’s my friend.  That’s all.  I love her the way I love you.  That’s it.”

Scott’s eyes welled up.  “Did you just say you love me?”

I rolled my eyes so hard it actually felt like my eyeballs dislocated from their sockets.  I groaned loudly.  Scott got up and stumbled towards me and launched himself at me hugging me.  I patted him awkwardly on the back.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to say that to me.  I love you too, man.”

I pushed him off me and he sat down on a chair right up next to me.

“So if you’re not with her, how are you taking care of your needs?”  

“My needs?  Scott, you fucking …”

“But seriously.”  He interrupted.   “I know you.  Please don’t tell me you’re doing the fuck buddy thing?  You know how that ended up with Mallory.”  

“No.  I just … do what I always did.”

Scott groaned loudly and threw his head back.  “You can’t have gone backward again.  I know your last relationship didn’t work out. Don’t backpedal.”

“Last relationship?  Only relationship.  It isn’t for me.  This works.  My 'needs’ are fulfilled.”  I paused for a moment.  Maybe he was right.  It had been getting to me lately all the sleeping around.  Was I about to have an epiphany?  Shake it off, man!  You don’t need that.  This is working for you.

“Please tell me you’re at least getting tested regularly,” Scott said.

“Stop making me want to roll my eyes.  I’m going to strain something.”  I groaned.

“Are you?”

“Scott!”

“ _Tell me you’re getting tested regularly!_ ”  He yelled.

“ _I’ve never been tested for anything ever,_ ”  I yelled back.

“Dude!  You have to do that.  People do that!”

Well, that’s it.  My life is a fuck up.  Can’t write.  Can’t form meaningful relationships.  Going to die of undiagnosed Chlamydia.

“I just love ya, man.  I want you to be looking after yourself.” Scott said frowning at me.

“I do look after myself.”

The sounds of Carrie and Christine giggling filled the courtyard.

“She just got home.  Do you want to meet her?”  I asked him.

Scott jumped up and bounced on the balls of his feet like a kid who was about to get taken to the circus and had no idea how terrifying clowns actually were.  “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more than I want that.”

I strolled across the courtyard and we let ourselves into her apartment.  She looked over and before she could say anything I was attacked by Carrie and Christine.  They hugged my legs and I patted them awkwardly on the head.  

“Hey there monsters.  How was your day?”  I asked them.  

“We made a book,”  Carrie said.

“Wike you does.”  Christine added.

“Who dat?”  Carrie asked pointing at Scott.  

“This is my friend Scott,”  I said.  “Scott this one is Carrie.”  I touched Carrie on the head.  “And this one is Christine.”

“Ovver way awound.”  Carrie said.

“Nice try, monster.  I know who is who.”  I said.  They started giggling took each other’s hands and ran off.

“You never said anything about kids,”  Scott whispered.

“They’re not kids.  They’re actually demons.”  I whispered back.

“Don’t call them demons.”  She said approaching us.  “Who’s this?”

“This is my best friend, Scott,”  I said.  She shook his hand and then turned to me pouting.

“I thought I was your best friend.”  She said.

Was that true?  I knew she was just teasing but w _as_  she my best friend?  I’d gotten so used to the fact that Scott was the person I was closest to that I’d failed to realize I spent the past six months living in her back pocket.  I rarely went a day where we didn’t speak.  Whereas I had barely spoken to Scott at all for that time.  I actually couldn’t imagine not seeing her regularly anymore.

Life has moments where things change and you aren’t paying enough attention to keep up with it.  Is that what had happened here?  

I forced a laugh.  “You’re just my best female friend.  That barely counts.”  She punched me in the arm.

“Do you guys want to stay for dinner?”  

We did.

She got on so well with Scott.  It was like they’d known each other forever.  I was jealous.  Just a little, but it was there.  Here they were talking about their shared life experiences.  Scott was totally wrapped up in the story of when she fell in love with her husband. She never told him how he died, but Scott wasn’t interested in that anyway.  He was all about how they met, how she knew he was  _THE ONE_ , all the little things that led them to their life together. She, in turn, was excited to hear about Scott finding  _THE ONE_ and if he thought they’d get married.  Did he want kids of his own?  All those typical relationship questions.

All I had to offer was; 'Yeah I dated someone for three months.  It was terrible.’

Had I always been this person who had nothing to offer their friends?  All I did was lie and take from people.  I needed to change.  

Scott left the next morning.  I sat around sulking all day until she got home.  Then I sat sulking outside while the girls played tag. Then I sulked over pizza.  Then I went out and sulked as I waited for her to come outside.

“Did you let her sleep again?”  She asked as she came out and sat beside me.

“There is no one to sleep.”

She looked at me and raised an eyebrow.  I took her drug paraphernalia from her and started rolling a joint.  

“I just don’t want to keep doing that.”  I shrugged.

“Wow.  For good?”  

I shrugged.  “Maybe not for good, for good.  But not the way I have been.  I still don’t want a girlfriend, and I like sex.  I just have to stop lying to people to get it.  Or just stop lying to people at all.”

She took my hand in hers and squeezed it.  We sat quietly like that for a moment.

“What’s up, sulky?”  She asked breaking the silence and bumping me with her hip.

I lit the joint, taking a long draw.  “I think I should get tested.  I’ve never done that before.”

She looked at me completely shocked.  Not that I blame her.  It made no sense that I wouldn’t do that.  “Never?”

I shook my head.  “I mean, I wrap it up.  But still.”

“Shit.  Even I’ve been tested and I only slept with three different people in my whole life.”

I looked at her with my eyes wide.  “Only three?  Jesus fucking Christ.  How are we friends?”

She laughed at me.  “Want me to come with you?”

I looked at her.  What did I do to deserve having her in my life? It seemed like there was nothing I had done that could explain the fact that I was deserving to have her as a friend at all.  “You’d do that?”

“Of course.”   She took the joint from me and took a draw.

“Am I a terrible friend?”  

She blinked at me, startled.  Then paused and thought for a moment. So that was a yes.

“You’re a little self-absorbed, but no I wouldn’t say that.  You help me out a lot.”

“I feel like with Scott it’s all him and no me.   I’m just a cancerous growth he has to live with.”

She shrugged.  “I can’t speak for Scott.  I can only speak for me. I like our talks.  I like our weekends.  I like how you have finally learned which twin is which.  Granted that took  _forever_  but given you don’t even like kids, I’m calling it a win.”

I suddenly felt the overwhelming need to let her know I loved her. I had no idea where it came from.  I just really wanted to hear the words out loud.  Say them to someone and mean it.  Can you do that? Tell your female friends you love them and have them not get the wrong idea?  Fuck it.  I’m going in.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”  She said.  Simple as that.  She loved me too. No big deal.

“It’s my brother’s birthday this weekend.  So I may not be around as much.”  She added.

“What about cooking day?”

“I know.  It’s stressing me out.  I hate not being ahead with that, since …”  She shook her head.

That sentence ended with 'my husband was murdered because I couldn’t be organized about my meal planning’.  I put my arm around her.  She took a huge draw on the joint and held it for as long as she could.

“Ugh.  How am I going to entertain myself without you around?” I complained.

“Masturbation?”

I laughed.  “Sure.  I’ll jerk off all weekend.  See how much come I can produce in a 48 hour period.”

She pulled a face and started giggling.  

“Maybe I can do the weeks cooking for you?  I mean … if it will help?”  I offered.  I don’t know why I did that.  I don’t even help her cook when I’m there at her house for cooking day.

“Do you even know how to cook?”

I nodded.   “I actually do, yeah.  I’m pretty good at it.  I just … don’t.”

“If you could do that for me, I would be eternally grateful to you.  You have no idea how much it will help.”

I shrugged.  “Of course.”

We sat for a little while longer just passing the joint back and forth between us and staring at the sky.

“I better head inside.   Any offers for me tonight because I have the  _best_ answer today?”

“No.  I think I’m done with that too.”

She ruffled my hair.  “Oh, baby.  So much introspection today. Anyway, it was 'Not even if hell opened a giant tentacle beast crawled out from the ground and the only way to stop it from consuming all life on Earth was for us to fuck.”

I laughed.  “Harsh.”

“I know!  I worked on it all day.   Oh well.   Night, babe.”

“Night.”

This time I felt at peace.


	6. Countdown to Heartbreak

Have you ever noticed that right when you think things are going your way, life fucking knees you in the balls and kicks you until you vomit from the pain?  Alright, not my best work I admit, but fuck life.  Fuck it.

I spent the weekend cooking for her while she went and spent time with her family.   When she finally got home on Sunday night she was a stressed out mess.  When I showed her all the things I’d made, she suddenly felt better.  You could actually physically see the tension in her neck release.  I’d never felt like I’d been able to provide that for someone before.  I was usually a leading cause of problems.

On Wednesday we all left the house together.   We dropped Chrissy and Carrie off at daycare together and then like the dysfunctional family we were she drove me to the clinic to get tested.  

Christ the nurse there was up for some slut shaming.  The lecture I got about being more careful when I am fucking careful.  The incredulous look _she_ was given just for being there with me. Like ‘girl, please tell me you aren’t letting this douche bag put his dick in you’.  

This wouldn’t have been half as bad if it weren’t for the fact I was fucking clean.  All these lectures about making poor choices and I had nothing wrong with me.

We drove home and I sat in the passenger seat seething.  

“What’s the matter with you?   You’re clean.  Shouldn’t you be happy?”  She asked.

“I just don’t like being made to feel like some dirty, little, deviant, fuck up when I haven’t done anything wrong,”  I said.

She rubbed my thigh.  “I know.  She was a bitch.  Fuck her.  Or better yet,  _don’t_ fuck her.  That’ll teach her.”

I laughed.  “Thank you.”

“It’s okay.  It’s your life you’re living.  Not anyone else’s. All you can do is do the best with what you’ve got.”

“Why do you think I haven’t heard back from that publication house?  They seemed so keen.  Now I don’t know if I should try somewhere else.”

Her hands suddenly tensed on the steering wheel.  “They’re probably just working with accountants and lawyers to draw up a contract for you.  It was a really good book, you know?”

“Really?  You think it was good?”

“Yeah.  I really do.”

We were heading up onto an overpass and a car that was several lengths ahead of us threw what looked like a pillowcase with something in it out the window.  It bounced along the shoulder and came to a rest.  She veered into the shoulder slamming on the breaks.

“What the fuck did they just throw?”  She yelped.  “It’s moving.”

She jumped out of the car and ran towards it picking it up and looking inside.   The look of pure abject horror that crossed her features is not one that I ever want to see again.  She ran back to the car and passed me the bag, as she jumped in.

“Use your GPS to find the closest emergency vet.”  She yelped as she pulled the car back out onto the freeway.

“What is it?”  I asked looking in the bag.   Inside was a small black and brown puppy.  It was a mess.  Blood and two of its legs looked obviously broken.  

People are often too quick to call the ones who do things like this animals or monsters.  Quickly dehumanizing the perpetrators so they can be seen as apart from the rest of us.  The truth is, they’re people.  Just like us.  That’s the horror of it all.   You can never tell what the person you’re about to meet is capable of.

I put my hand in the bag and stroked the tiny puppy over its ear. It whimpered at my touch.

“Why don’t we just take it to your clinic?”  I asked.

“What?”  She said looking at me with both confusion and frustration.  “Why are you wasting time.  We need to get it to someone.”

“Your clinic.  You could fix it up right away.”  I pushed.  “If we go to another vet they might be treating another animal and we’ll have to wait.”

She suddenly stilled, a plethora of emotions crossed her features. Pain, anger, sorrow, confusion.  “I’m not a vet.  I lied okay. Please!  Just find somewhere.”

I pulled out the GPS and typed in ‘nearest vet’.  The directions came up and I stared at her.

“What do you mean you aren’t a vet?”  I asked.

“I lied!  I lied about being a vet!  Please, we’ll talk about it later.”  She was frantic.

“Why did you lie?  What do you do?  Are you a hooker?”  

She made a frustrated groan.  “Yes, I’m a successful daytime, business hours only hooker.  Please.  I promise I’ll tell you later.”

“Why can’t you tell me now?”  I pressed.

“Because I’m going to hurt you.  And I can’t do it while we’re in the car, driving.”

Countdown to the point where she breaks my heart starts: now.

We took the puppy to the emergency vet.  It wasn’t as bad as you would have expected a puppy thrown from a car traveling at 80 miles per hour would be.  Both its left legs were broken as was one rib. It had a claw ripped out at the root, and it needed stitches in a wound along its left shoulder.   Otherwise, it was holding up.  We agreed to take it home.  That meant buying around $100 in puppy supplies.   She paid.

We picked the girls up from daycare.   They were very excited to see the puppy.  They wanted to keep it, but she seemed completely stressed out by the idea.  Like she was barely managing to keep their family functioning with just them in it.  I said I’d keep it at my house, but that it could be their puppy.  They named it Freddy.  Like in the song they love.  They then sang the song to remind me.  I now have a puppy that will kill me in my dreams.  Just what I always wanted.

I ate dinner with them.  Staring at her the whole time.  Willing her to talk to me.  The girls took turns with the puppy on their lap. They were so gentle and kind with it, I never wanted to call them monsters again.  They weren’t demons or monsters.  They were kind little girls who had the worst fucking thing you could ever imagine happen to you happen to them, and they came out still with enough empathy that at four they knew this little puppy needed gentle touches and quiet words.

She put the girls to bed, while I took the puppy to my place and set it up in a box with a blanket beside my bed.

I came outside and waited.  It felt like forever.

She came over and sat down.  Neither of us said anything.

I watched as she rolled the joint, taking time and care.  Drawing this out so that she could have as long as possible without me being destroyed by her.  She put the joint to her mouth, lit it and drew the smoke slowly into her lungs.  She passed it to me and held her breath while I repeated her actions.  

We released the smoke together.

“Well?”  I asked.

“I’m the editor in charge of approving your book.”  She said.

“You’re fucking what?”

“Your book.  Your book!  I was the one that sent you those letters.  That was me.”

“What the fuck?  Why did you tell me you were a vet?”  I snapped.

“You said you were an author.  Do you know how many 'authors’ I’ve met who have given me their shitty fucking manuscripts and expected me to magically have them published so they can all achieve their dreams?  Like I somehow have the magic ability to make people want to buy their piece of shit, Mary Sue, cliché ridden trash?”

So my work was a piece of shit, Mary Sue, cliché ridden, piece of trash I guess.  Great.  Just great.  If you’re keeping track of the point where she broke my heart.  That was it.  Right there.

“Okay?  So you lied when we met.  We’ve known each other for six fucking months! Six months I thought you were a vet!  Six months I’ve been going back and forward with my novel with someone unknown entity to perfect it.  And it was you!  You could have  _said something!_ ” I yelled the last bit.  We were in the courtyard of an apartment building taking illegal drugs and I was screaming at her.

“I know!  I know!  You know how many times I thought about saying something?  I didn’t know how.”

“So tell me?  Were you just stringing me along to mess with me? I’m not getting it picked up, am I?   That’s why I haven’t heard back. You couldn’t think of any way to make me re-write it again, and so you threw it out and moved on.”  She opened her mouth to say something but I just continued to yell over her.  “Was it fun?  Did you get some sort of sick thrill messing with my life like that!  I need to sell this book to live you realize?  I am currently living on drying up film royalties and my Granddad’s inheritance.”

She was crying now.  Ugly crying.  Under normal circumstances that might have made me want to comfort her.

“I’m sorry.  I wasn’t stringing you along.  It was good. It just wasn’t good enough.  We don’t normally tell people to change things, we just say no. I wanted to help you.”

“You wanted to help me?   _You should have told me so I didn’t have to jump through all these fucking hoops!_ ”

“I’m sorry.  Your changes made it exceptional.  But I still have to have someone else approve it.  They’re just taking forever.  I promise you’ll get the contract.  I promise.”  

“How can I believe you.  You wasted six months of my life!  You could have told me exactly what I needed to do, but you messed with me instead!”

“I tried to tell you what to do but you wouldn’t listen to me.” She cried.

“ _Because you told me you were a vet!_ ”

Someone from an upstairs apartment stuck their head out the window. “Shut the fuck up out there!”  They yelled down.

“Fuck you, man!  Mind your own fucking business.”  I yelled back.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t want to hurt you.  I just … I got scared.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Fuck your sorry and fuck you.   _This is my life you fucked around with.”_ I got to my feet and stared down at her.  “You kept telling me that there was no way you would ever fuck me.  Looks like you have been doing it the whole time.  I just didn’t know.”

I threw the joint on the ground and stormed off.  Leaving her on the bench to cry.

This time I felt nothing.


	7. The Importance of Platonic Love

When you lose someone from your life that you care about you find yourself missing the little things.  Those small gestures and acts that made them special to you.  The things other people might not even notice.

I stopped talking to her.  No more coffee in the morning.  No more late night talks.  No more Sunday cooking or trip to the beach.  I stopped doing lots of things, to be honest.  I stopped writing.  I stopped eating decent food.   I mostly lay face down on my couch feeling sorry for myself.  I tried to go back out and meet women again, but I was such a mess they wouldn’t even come near me.  I gave that up too.

The only thing I did do was look after Freddy.  After a few days of him living with me, he started moving around.  He found it hard with his legs and chest in a cast, but he’d stagger around the apartment. He’s little casts making tapping noises with every step.  I’d take him outside first thing in the morning, at lunchtime and then in the evening so Carrie and Chrissy got to play with him.  They were always so excited to see him, and so attentive and gentle.  He loved them. His tail would wag non-stop while he tried to keep up with those two.

She’d watch through the fence.  We wouldn’t say anything to each other.

She kept bringing me lunch, to begin with.  She’d leave it on the fence.  I was so angry with her, I didn’t want her to keep looking after me like that.   If she wanted to look after me she could have been honest with me from the start and helped me get my book published like a normal person.  So I left the packages there all day.  She’d pick the bag back up when she got home.  After two weeks she stopped leaving them.  I missed it.

I missed lots of things.  I missed how she would always ruffle my hair.  I missed how she would bump me with her hip when I said something she thought was a bit stupid but also funny.  I missed how she threw vegetables at me while she was cooking.  I missed how she scrunched her face up when I said something that disgusted her.  I missed how she would always be the last person to decide on an ice cream flavor at Ben and Jerry’s and then she’d always choose ‘Half Baked’ and ask us if she could try ours.  

Mostly I missed our talks.  

She still sat out there every night smoking.  My not wanting to be there wouldn’t have stopped that.  It made me remember the ritual wasn’t about us.  It was about her needing to sleep despite being plagued by the memory of her husband’s murder.

It’s hard to come to terms with the fact the world doesn’t revolve around you when you’ve been happily living under the assumption that it did for so long.

I got the offer to purchase my book three weeks after our fight.  It was actually an offer for a three-book contract and had a number with quite an obscene amount of zeros attached to it.  The offer didn’t come from her.  She’d passed me to someone else.  I wanted to turn it down out of spite.  I really considered it.  Brian told me if I did that he’d drop me from his agency.

I accepted.

Can someone please tell me how to stop being such a stubborn self-serving bitch?

I wanted to forgive her.

Why couldn’t I?

I considered moving again.  Maybe to New York this time?

Freddy had his stitches out.  Then a few weeks later his castes came off.  He was like a new dog.  He would tear around the apartment bumping into everything.  I couldn’t keep fragile things or heavy thing on top of other things or they’d fall off.  I was worried they’d land on him and he’d get hurt again.  

When he saw the twins at the end of the day he would run up to them barking his tiny puppy bark and wagging his whole body.  They would squeal and try patting him, but he couldn’t keep still long enough for him to let them.  They’d charge around the courtyard together with no game in mind.  Just running.  

At night he took to sleeping curled up in that space between my neck and my shoulder.

Two months after our fight there was a frantic knock on my door.  I was still doing the, all day sulking thing.  I hadn’t even showered yet.  I was just lying face down on my couch in my boxers and when the first thud hit the door I nearly jumped out of my skin.  

Freddy ran in circles and started yapping excitedly.  I pulled the door open to see her there.  She was frantic and crying.

“Can you watch the girls, please?  I don’t have anyone else.” She asked without even waiting for a greeting.

“What about your brother?”

“I just got out of the shower and – there was a message.  It was the hospital.  He’s been taken there.  They said I needed to be there, but they didn’t say why.  I can’t – I can’t take the girls. They don’t do hospitals.”  She said, she wouldn’t look me in the eye.  In fact, her eyes just darted around the room.  

I forgot everything.  Why I was mad at her.  That I even was mad at her.  I pulled her against me, and she broke down.  Sobbing against my chest.  

“I’ll just grab some clothes.  Do you want me to drive you?”  I asked.

“No – no.  I just need someone to watch the girls.”

I pulled on some jeans that were just left lying on the ground and a shirt that didn’t smell the absolute worst.

When I entered her apartment the twins jumped and squealed with delight.  I thought they were just excited to see Freddy, but they ran straight to me hugging my legs.  

I crouched down and hugged them tightly.

“You’re hewe.”  Chrissy said.

“You don’t come hewe anymore,”  Carrie added.

“I know.  You see me outside every day though.”  I said, trying to placate them.

“Is not the same.  Mumma is sad lots and lots.  You should be fwiends again.”  Carrie said.

“You shouldn’t fight wif your fwiends.”  Chrissy added.

“Well, I’m here now.  Why don’t we watch 'Watership Down’?”

They let me go and started to walk to the TV.  

“Where’s mama?  She should watch too.”  Chrissy said.

“She just had to go out.  I’m going to look after you while she’s gone.”  

They both stopped dead in their tracks and turned back to me. “She’ll come back?”  Carrie asked.

“Yes, of course, she will.”

“She won’t die?  Daddy died.”  

Ouch.  What the fuck was that?  That hurt me right in my chest.  

How exactly do you answer that question?  I mean it’s unlikely to happen.  So was their dad getting shot in front of them, and that happened.  What if I say no that isn’t what will happen and she has a car accident on the way because of how upset she is?

“I’m sure she’ll be fine.”  I settled on.  

We went and watched TV.  

A few hours later she walked back in the door.  I was just reclining back on her couch.  Freddy and the girls were lying in a heap on the carpet.   They jumped up when she came inside and hugs and pats were all doled out.   She came over and collapsed face down on the couch, her head in my lap.   I stroked my fingers through her hair.  

“Is he okay?”  I asked.

She started laughing.  “Yes.  The fucking idiot lives on quarter-pounders and coke.  He woke up paralyzed from a lack of potassium.”

“He what?  How does that even happen?”  

“Right?  Eat a fucking banana, you idiot.”

We both fell over laughing.

And just like that, we were back.  She never formally apologized again, and I never formally accepted it.  It was just forgotten.  We moved on.

All those little things I had missed, I appreciated even more.  All the hair ruffles, hip bumps, face scrunches.  I welcomed every singled one.

That first night I came outside to find her already smoking.  Her face lit up when she saw me.  I can’t say I’ve ever caused someone’s face to light up before.  I didn’t really know what that meant until right at that very moment.

“I haven’t seen you with another girl for ages.”  She said by way of greeting.

“No, it’s been a while,”  I said sitting down beside her.  “Look at how calloused my hand is getting.”  

I waved it in front of her face.  She squirmed away grimacing.  “Get that horrible thing away from me.  Who knows where it’s been.”

“I just told you where it’s been.  On my dick.”

“You are disgusting.”  She said pushing me away from her.  We fell back laughing.

“So how much of a while?”  She asked.

“I dunno.   A couple of months.”

She whistled.  “That’s so long.  I’ll fuck you if you want.  Throw you a bone, so to speak.  Just as long as you don’t get all clingy on me.  Just a one-time thing.”

“Not even using someone else’s dick.”

We both started laughing again.  I took the joint from her hand and took a draw.

“I missed this.”  She said.

“Yeah, me too.”

“You took the offer on your book?”

“Yeah.  Well, I’d have to be an idiot to turn that down.  I dedicated it to you.”  I said.  I leaned back into the bench letting my head hang back over the edge as I smoked.

She looked at me, her eyes wide.  “Even after what I did.”

I nodded.  “I told you I would.”

“So does it say 'To that skank across from me.  Your demon spawn scare the shit out of me.  Here have a book.’  Like you promised?” She asked, giggling.

“No.  It says.  'For her.  She knows what she did, but I love her despite it.'”

She looked away from me and swallowed.  “That could be about anyone.”  She said.  Trying to play it off.  I recognized that particular tactic.

“That was the plan.  Surefire chick magnet.”  I said.  “Ugh. Three books though.  So much pressure to perform now.”

“What will you write about next?”  

“I thought I’d write about the importance of platonic love.”

“Gross.”

I started laughing.  “Yeah.  It is gross.”  I took her hand in mine and squeezed it.  “Still, it’s what’s in my head.  Maybe I’ll just write it for me.  The book I write for them will be about some kids who have to fight to the death in a huge arena.”

“I think that’s already been done.”

“Shit.  Well, I’m out of ideas.”

“You should write about creepy twin girls who can murder you with your mind.”

“No thanks.  I already have a dog who can murder me in my dreams. I don’t want to start thinking those two can murder me with their minds as well.”

She took the joint from me and took a large draw.  “Let me think. We have to have one solid idea between us.”

“I know, I’ll write fanfiction for some obscure movie no one really liked but fix the core problem with the plot and sell it as a new thing.  That’ll do it.”

She started giggling.  “Yeah, that could work.”

We sat silently passing the joint back and forth.  Eventually, she got up.  “I need sleep.  I haven’t been sleeping at all lately. I’m hoping today’s events might have exhausted me enough that my brain will shut off for a change.”

“Alright.  Well, you know where I am if you need me.”

She ruffled my hair.  “Thanks.  Night, babe.”

“Goodnight.”

This time I felt happy.


	8. And they all lived

If there is one thing that is inevitable about life is that change occurs.  As much as you might be happy and content with the way things are going for you right now, there is always something waiting to throw you off course again.

We fell into a routine.  A fun, comfortable and content routine.  I was with her most of the time, to be honest.  To people on the outside, we would have looked like a happy little family.  The number of waitresses, store clerks and street vendors who referred to her as my wife or the twins as my kids had gotten to an uncountable number.

That terrified me, to begin with.  I was always quick to correct them.  'We are not married.  She is my friend.    _My friend._ ’ I’m not sure when I stopped correcting them.  I remember it still annoyed me, but that I just couldn’t be bothered anymore.  Then I just didn’t care anymore.   It didn’t matter how other people saw us.  If they thought I was a husband and father that was okay.  There were worse things they could think about me.

Something changed.  I’m not sure when.  I don’t know if it was this sudden thing where I woke up and just felt this way.  Or if it was something that gradually happened.  All I know is I actually started liking when people thought of me like that.  Then I started liking thinking of myself like that.  Then I realized that maybe I didn’t just want to be friends with her anymore.  I didn’t just love her anymore.  I was in love with her.  Not in a huge fireworks massive declaration way.  I just was in love with her.  I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.  

How do you tell someone that exactly?  I’ve tried it before. In that case, I had nothing to lose.  Now I had everything to lose.  I could scare her off.  Or worse, she might be thinking the same thing, and we go all in, and it fails again and I lose her.  Then what?  Then I have nothing.  It was worst this time too.  This time I meant it.

So I sat on it.  

Yeah, I sulked.  Shut up.

Turns out trying to keep a secret like that is impossible.  She tried to be patient with my sulking.  She tried to coax me out of my self-pity party.  Eventually, she snapped.

“If you are just going to sulk around and not tell me what’s wrong can you please do it at your own place?”

“I’m sorry.  I’m scared.”  I whined.

She pulled me to my feet and dragged me to her bedroom and pushed me so I was sitting on her bed.  I hadn’t actually been in her bedroom before.  Worst place to have this particular conversation.

“Spit it out!”

“I love you,”  I said.

“I love you too.  So hurry up and tell me what’s the matter before I strangle you.”

I shook my head.  “No.  I mean, I’m  _in_  love with you.”

She spun away from me and banged her head on the door.  “Fucking great.  Great!”

I suddenly remembered that I’d lived through this before.  This had happened with Mallory and I stormed out on her and drank a bottle of vodka.  Fuck.   I needed to call her and apologize for being such an asshole.  First; the problem at hand.

“Please talk to me,”  I said softly.

“What am I supposed to do with that?  Now we’ve been ruined.  I can’t be that, and now we can’t be friends either.”  

“Look, I am not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to.  It’s just how I feel.  If you want to stay as friends, I’m fine with that.  I love you.  I want you to be happy.  That’s all I want. I’m not going to complain that you put me in the friend zone.  Or keep pushing you for more.  But I do want more.  I want all of it.  I want to wake up in bed with you and watch you sleep.  I want to go on horrible family vacations with you.  The kind of vacations that you need an extra week to recover from.  I want to help you get the girls ready for their first day of school.  I want to make sure they don’t end up dating people like me.  I want to take you on dates.  I want to hold your hand and kiss you, and fuck you and make love to you. But if that’s not what you want, and it’s never what you want, I just want you to be happy.  If you can’t be happy with me like that.  I’ll take whatever you’re able to give.”

She held her hand over her mouth and tears formed in her eyes.  “I’m not good enough for you. Why would you want that with me and all my fucking baggage?”

“Why would you even think that about yourself?  If anything it’s the other way around.  You’re my best friend.”

She sat down on the bed and flopped backward staring at the ceiling. Tears slipped down from the sides of her eyes and rolled down onto the bed.  I lay down next to her and looked at her.

“What if it blows up on us?  I don’t want to lose you.”  She asked her voice barely above a whisper.

“Do you feel the same way?”  I asked ignoring her question. “About me that is?”

“Yes.  I have for a little while.  I don’t know when it changed. I just buried it.  I bury those thoughts.  Like I bury everything that makes me uncomfortable.”

“I’m not going anywhere.  If we can’t work out like that, we’ll figure it out.”

She turned to face me and we looked into each other’s eyes.  

“Okay.”  She breathed.

“Okay, we’ll try being a couple?”  

She nodded and I leaned in towards her.  She put her hand up.   “We need to go really slow though.  Like, really, really slow.   If it looks like things are going sour we stop, straight away before it gets too serious.”

“Whatever you need.”

She pulled her hand away and we kissed.  It was nice.  Just the right amount of tongue and she did that thing where they scrape their teeth over your bottom lip when you pull away for air.  Mostly though, it felt right.  Like that’s what we were supposed to be doing.

When things are supposed to be a certain way, they just naturally fall into place.  Forcing them to behave any other way will just cause them to break.

We took things slow.  Just like she wanted.  Mostly things didn’t change at all.  Except now we held hands and kissed a lot.  Carrie and Chrissy hated it.  So I especially liked doing it in front of them so they’d tell us we were gross and that I was going to give their mom cooties.

Her brother started picking the girls up from daycare on Fridays and keeping them overnight so we could go on dates.  I was so terrified the first time I met him picking the girls up on a Saturday morning.  I was sure he must know everything about me.  I needn’t have been concerned.  He was so happy that she was dating again, and that she finally trusted anyone else to have the girls overnight, that he almost didn’t care who I was.  He did give me the typical ‘don’t hurt her or I’ll kill you’ warning.  That was nice.

Our dates were simple ones.  Dinner in Old Town getting serenaded by Mariachi bands.  Movies.  Mostly it was just us, being alone together because that was rare.  We’d always end the night by sitting outside smoking and having our usual end of the night talk.  We’d then kiss goodnight and go home.  

I took her out to Balboa Park one night.  Just before sundown. There had been a butterfly release at the Zoro garden during the day and the butterflies were still fluttering around.  We climbed off the path and sat down in between the roots of the giant Morton Bay Fig.  

I pulled her to me and we made out.  Butterflies would alight on us only to take off again when they realized what an unstable platform we were.  

We eventually pulled apart and just sat, watching the butterflies floating around the garden.  

“Look at all the idiots who carved their initials into this poor tree.”  She said.  

I pulled out a penknife and flicked the blade out.  “We should do it.”  

She grabbed my hand.   “Okay first of all, why the hell do you have a pocket knife?”  She asked.

“I was a scout,”  I answered puffing out my chest.

“Bullshit.”  She scoffed.

“It’s true,”  I said.  “Granddad insisted.”

She burst out laughing and hugged me.  

“Are you done?”  I asked when she finally got control of herself.

“I think so.  Don’t carve our initials in the tree.  It will doom us.”

I rolled my eyes.  “How will it doom us?”

She waved her hand over the tree.  “How many of these people who were so in love they had to deface this tree do you think are actually still together?”  

She did have a point there.  Probably none of them.  I’d be surprised if it was over 1%.  I put my knife on the tree and carved a heart.

“I said don’t.”  She whined.

“Just trust me will you.”  

I carved the word 'me’ then a plus sign and then the word 'you’.  

“See now no matter what it will be true.  There will always be a me and you.”

She grabbed her chest like she was having a heart attack.  “That was so fucking saccharine I feel like I developed diabetes.”  

“Thank you,”  I said kissing her forehead.

“Which one is me and which one is you.”  She asked.

“Well, obviously I’m me.  And you’re you.”

She scoffed.  “I don’t think so, pal.  I’m me I think you’ll find.”

We went and had dinner at a courtyard restaurant. All mood music and candle lighting.  It was late when we got home and I headed straight to the bench outside her apartment.  

She grabbed my arm and pulled me up.  “Not yet, I want to be in complete control of my senses for what happens now.”

“What happens now?”  I asked.  

She raised her eyebrow. 

I’d like to say we made love that night.  She’d been without sex for over three years though, and she came at me like a hellcat.  There was a lot of throwing each other up against walls and scratching.  I had to pin her hands over her head at one point to give my back a break.  She didn’t complain.

I’d also like to say I lasted a really long time and made sure she was thoroughly satisfied.  I had been without for nine months, and I pretty much shot my load as soon as I was inside her.  I’m not an asshole though.  I made sure she got there with some aggressive fingering.

We lay together sweaty and panting.  She curled up against me. No one had ever done that before and had me actually pleased about it. I wrapped my arm around her running my fingers up and down her side.

“Give me about twenty minutes and I might be able to go again,” I said.  “Do it properly.”

She laughed.  “It’s fine.  We should revel in our successful coupling.”  

I burst out laughing.  “What.  The.  Fuck?”

She started giggling too.  “I don’t know.  I was trying to be poetic.  Fuck off.”

“Leave the poetry to the experts.”  I kissed her forehead.  “You wanna go outside and smoke?”

“Not tonight.  I don’t think I need it.”  She said snuggling against me.  “Will you stay?”

“I’d never leave if I could avoid it,”  I said.

And I didn’t.  That’s the end of the story.  We’re those people now. The people who you see who are just comfortable in their relationships.  The ones who don’t need to boast about it but you just know are happy and in love.  

I didn’t officially move in with her right away, but my place became storage for my things.  I only ever went there to get stuff when I needed it.  After a year we bought a house together.  It was a three bedroom, adobe thing a block from the beach that had a small office I could do my writing in.  Although I tend to like to just bring my MacBook out and do it around all the noise of my family.

My first novel made it into the New York Times bestseller list. Not for long, but it got there.  It was optioned for a movie.  My book contract was extended.  The second novel hit the bestseller list immediately on release.  I still don’t know what to do with that kind of success and I’ve written seven novels now.  

Carrie and Chrissie started calling me dad a little after the four year anniversary of our meeting.  It didn’t scare me one bit.  By then I was already telling people they were my kids.  A year after that I adopted them.  They still have their dad’s last name.  He was a good man.  They should have that.  It just means now if something were to happen to her, they’d stay with me.  That does scare me, but just because I can’t imagine my life without her in it.

We never got married.  I don’t think that’s us really.  We’ve talked about it.  It’s just not something either of us needs.

We’re now expecting our own kid.  Just one thank fuck.  But they’re on their way, and I’m excited.

I guess what I learned was that love is lots of things.  It passion and romance and declarations.  It’s also patience and kindness and selflessness.  Selflessness most of all.  It’s not making a stranger cheat with you and then going to break up her wedding.  It’s holding your best friend’s child when they’re sick because they need that help.  It’s cooking for them because you know if you don’t their anxiety will take control of them.  It’s all those little things that just make you glad you have that person in your life.

It’s funny how life can end up so far from what you expected from it.  I thought I’d end up dying alone face down in a pool.  I had no love to give, I didn’t expect to have it given to me.

Now I just feel love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the end of the main story. The following two chapters are stand-alone one-shots.


	9. Post Script:  Responsibilities

I always thought that growing up and being responsible was the equivalent of committing suicide.  Having a family, bills to pay, parent-teacher conferences.  That wasn’t life, that was just existing.

I don’t think anyone who had ever met me pre-her would have expected that I would take to this life the way I have.  It’s like I’ve had two lives.  The empty one where I was punishing myself and everyone around me for something my mother did.  And this one where I actually allowed myself to love anyone other than myself.  Where I allowed myself to be loved.  That was a big fucking hurdle I had to get over.

So here I am a fucking parent.  Can you believe that?  I own a house and have a dog.  Her. There are regular bills that I need to pay.  PTA meetings and field trips that need chaperones.  I have regular but not daily sex with the same person.

All those things that I thought was giving up.  Turns out, for me it was that missing piece.  That one thing I’d been holding back that I needed to actually be happy.  I know that isn’t the case for everyone.  But for me, it was just what I needed.

Carrie and Chrissie are ten now.  They’ve reached that age where you can see who they are going to be as adults.  They’re still kids, but it’s different.  You just get these little peeks at who they are going to be.

Carrie is sarcastic as hell.  I love it.  She literally takes no shit from anyone.  Her mom is often horrified by the things we say to each other.  I just see mini her in Carrie though.  I don’t think I’m ever going to have to worry that she’s going to be talked into doing things she doesn’t want to. She loves watching those weird YouTube videos that are just some person playing video games.  I don’t get it, but she’s super into it.  She’s even started to make her own.  She keeps begging us to buy her some audio equipment.  I say no, but I think I’ll do it.  If it’s something she loves.

Christine is quiet and a bit introspective.   She spends a lot of time with Freddy.  Those two are kind of inseparable.  She’s started writing.  For a ten-year-old, she’s pretty good.  The topics can be a little dark though.  I worry she’s gotten the dead parent version of your mum leaving you that I got as a kid.  She panics any time someone is late.

They don’t tell you how to deal with that kind of thing in the parenting books.

Or maybe they do.  I don’t know because I haven’t read any.  I’m still not that guy.  That’s just something their mom says.

Speaking of their mom, she’s due any day now.  It’s a boy.  I’m excited and also terrified.  I really love being a dad.  I never thought I’d ever say that, but I do.  I’m just scared.  What if he’s anything like me?

The morning started as it usually does.  A mad rush to get the twins to school.  Afterward, we took Freddie for a walk along La Jolla Shores.  It was a bit cooler than normal and one of those super tides had happened so there was still water pooling on the path and in the car park.  Freddy wouldn’t stay out of it.  He’d run in barking, throwing water everywhere, roll around and dash out, shaking his coat and spraying us both with icy droplets.

As we were walking together she suddenly stopped and looked down.  There was water everywhere.

“What just happened?”  I asked.

She rolled her eyes.  She had picked up some things from me.  “What do you think?”

“But you haven’t had any contractions,”  I said.

“How do you know?”  She asked.

I feel like I should have had a smart ass answer to that.  I did not.  

Turns out I was right though because her first contraction hit her as we walked back home.  She suddenly grabbed my hand and squeezed it really hard without breaking her stride.

We called her brother as we walked and he agreed to pick the girls up from school.  We then called the school and told them that was going to happen. After that, the hospital was called and she was just hanging up the phone when we made it home.  

We let Freddy into the yard and grabbed her overnight bag before heading to the hospital. That’s when the fun stuff started.  By fun stuff, I mean disgusting nightmare that is childbirth.

So here’s a tip.  If you plan to have kids with a woman and you’re required to be in the delivery room.  Which you probably will be.  They make this big deal about how you ‘did it too them’ and you ‘having to be there to witness the miracle of childbirth’.  Try and impregnate someone who’s already given birth to twins.  None of that sitting around all day waiting, that third baby will just shoot out like they’ve come down a waterslide.  It isn’t like tv at all.  Just boom here’s a baby.

Don’t tell her I said that.

There was the usual screaming and bloodbath though.  Hey, you know women shit themselves when they give birth?  I didn’t. I do now though.  I think I could have lived my whole life not knowing that, to be honest.  I shall be googling ways to wipe things from my memory later.

At the bit, just before the pushing, she screamed at me that we were never having sex again.

“This isn’t exactly doing anything for my libido either,”  I said. Yeah, so I’ve never claimed to be smart.  Just putting that out there.

“Oh.  My.  God!  I am going to kill you.  Come here so I can kill you!”  She yelled.

I shook my head.  “I may be an idiot, but I’m not that much of an idiot.”

“Could you please stop antagonizing your wife while she’s giving birth?”  The midwife said.

I slouched over to her.  “Sorry, wifey.”  

She slapped me.  I deserved it.

There was not a lot of the pushing part.  She held my hand and bared down.  I rubbed her back.  I dunno.  It was just a loud mess and then he was here.  Where before I didn’t have a son, now I had one.  I cut the cord.  I don’t even know why they ask the guy to do that.  Is it supposed to make us feel like we’re more of a part of it or something?  I guess it was kind of cool in a shitty movie adaption of a Stephen King novel way.  

There are moments in your life that make you question the nature of everything.  What you’ve been doing with yourself.  What everything means.  What existence even is.  

I sat down behind her and she lay back against me.  Sweat beaded on her skin.  She was completely exhausted and they placed our son on her chest.  She leaned down and kissed him and then closed her eyes and lay back into my chest.

I stroked my little boy over his sticky head.  “Holy shit.  You just fucking made a person.”  I said.

“Pretty cool, huh?”  She said, not even opening her eyes.

I kissed her on the forehead.  “That was a horror show.”

“Tell me about it.  It’s not even over yet.”  She said.  I looked at the midwife and she nodded.

“She still has to deliver the placenta.  And she’s going to need stitches.”  She agreed.

“What the fuck?  In your vag?  I’m so sorry I did this to you.”  I yelped.  She laughed and reached up and ran her fingers through the scruff of my beard.

“Look what we got though.”  She said.  

She was right though.  He was all gross and covered in goo.  He had a weird wrinkly head.  When he cried it was loud and went right through me.  All that and I already knew I loved him.  

All that other horrible stuff happened.  The placenta delivery.  Placenta is yet another thing I could have happily gone all my life without seeing.  So much blood.  Oh god.  So.  Much.  Blood.  She had stitches.  All fun reasons why I’m glad I’m the man.  I got to hold him for a while she had a shower.  It was strange.  I simultaneously couldn’t believe I was being trusted to hold a baby, let alone it actually be my baby I was holding, and knowing that this was exactly where I had always needed to be.

She was wheeled down to her room.  This time they didn’t trust me to hold the baby.  Probably with good reason.  He went in one of those clear plastic tubs that I guess is supposed to be a bassinet.  They don’t really look like a baby bed though.  More like an inbox for someone who’s really bad at getting their paperwork done.

They’d wrapped him in a blue blanket.  He looked a little bit like a burrito. When we got to her room there was a double bed.  I guess when you are a best selling author your health insurance buys the niceties.  We called Carrie and Christine and told them they had a new brother.  They took it like the moody pre-teens they were.

Carrie said “Uh duh, dad.  I thought mom was having a puppy.”

Chrissie asked how long before we came home.

We climbed into bed together and she curled up against me.  “I’m kind of wide awake and he’s going to wake up soon.  Tell me something boring to make me go to sleep.” She said.

“Excuse me all my stories are totally riveting,”  I said.

She laughed.  “Yes.  They sure are.”  She said, sarcasm dripping from every word.

“Can you believe that there is a person in this room that didn’t exist yesterday?”  I asked, ignoring her.

“He kind of did though you know?”  She said.  “He was just inside of me.”

I considered making a dirty joke and then realized our infant son was involved and quickly changed my mind.  “You know what I mean though.  How can someone not exist, and then suddenly exist?  Blows my mind.”

She leaned into me and started nuzzling at my throat.  “I think they started whole religions based on how mind-blowing that concept is.”  She said.  Her voice was all breathy and I looked down at her.  She gazed up at me with those big blue eyes of hers.  

“Do you really want to make out after that mess?”  I asked.

She nodded.  “I kind of do.  Is it weird that I just thought about how you were when we first met?  There is no way that I would have had a baby with that guy.  I liked that guy.  He was self-absorbed, but he made a decent friend.  I couldn’t have imagined even having sex with him let alone agreeing to have a family with him though.  But here we are.  I fucking love you so much.”

“I fucking love you so much too,”  I said.  We kissed for a little while.  She started to wane after not too long and pulled away from me, resting her head on my chest.  

“When do we get to have sex again?”  I asked.

“Six weeks.”  She answered.  

I kissed her cheek.  “I can’t wait.”

“Yeah.  Me either.”  She murmured.  

This time, I felt complete.


	10. Post Script:  Season's Greetings

Peace on Earth and goodwill to men.  That’s the ol’ Bible quote they like to drag out this time of year, isn’t it?  I wonder if that’s because everyone is so high strung they just need that little reminder.  It certainly didn’t seem to be because there was a lot of goodwill to go around.

I’d never really got the whole point of Christmas.  My mom wasn’t really into spending time with the family.  When she ran off, Grandpa tried to make it special, but he was an old man alone with a kid.  It didn’t make for the most festive of seasons.  We never really did the whole Christmas meal.  Old man and small boy.  Not exactly capable of eating an entire ham.  Sometimes we got Spam.  That was worse than not having the ham at all.  

My presents were okay.  Never what I wanted.  But he tried.  I did love him.  I wish I’d told him that more.  Mostly though Christmas just reminded me of what I didn’t have.  

In my late teens, I started hitting Christmas parties.  It didn’t matter if I was invited or not.  I went anyway.  By Christmas day I’d be sporting a three-week hangover.  I’d give Grandpa a tie I’d stolen at some point and wrapped in newspaper and I’d struggle through the day, passing out by about three in the afternoon.

I hated Christmas and I resented anyone who enjoyed it.  I was just angry.  Angry at being left.  Angry at not having what other people had.  Angry that even the person who loved me couldn’t get it right.  Angry that I had to pretend to enjoy it because I didn’t want him to know how angry I was.

Christmas was not my holiday

She, however, loves Christmas.  She had all the things necessary in her life to make it good.  She made it to high school with both her parents.  Parents who loved her very much.  She had her brother.  Then straight from school to storybook romance complete with twins.  

And then she got me.  Oh, darlin’ your life trajectory had been so good.  

She dragged me kicking and screaming into this holiday.  Oh god, was she into it.  Even after her husband died she’d dive in head first with the thing.  You should see how she wraps a gift.  It’s like a work of art.  She themes everything.  The tree has a theme, the gift wrap matches the theme.  It’s crazy.  She’s crazy. 

I don’t know what I did to deserve her.

The first Christmas I spent with her and the twins we had only really been dating a month or so.  We hadn’t even had sex yet.  Dark days, my friend.  Dark days.  I went in not really knowing what to expect.  She’d decorated her tiny little apartment and the fence outside.  So I knew she was into it.  

I had told her I’d help cook.  I didn’t know what I’d gotten myself into.  She did the whole thing from scratch.  The baked ham, the apple pie, even the dinner rolls.  Her brother and her dad came around.  Carrie and Christine were in fine creepy form.  I was overwhelmed and on edge the whole day.  She was beautiful though.  She loved her family being there.  I think she was even happy I was there in my slightly overwound state.  I remember after everyone had left and we sat outside having our nightly joint, instead of talking we just made out.  

After that, it wasn’t so bad.  I kind of like it now.   It’s always stressful.  Always.  But you know when you just love something because people you love, love it?  I’d never realized that was a thing until I met her.  She loves it.  Carrie and Chrissie really love it.  So I kind of love it too.  Or I love seeing them happy.

Did you know that Santa Claus as we know him was shaped by the Coca-Cola company?  Up until they started drawing the man as a fat, jolly fellow he pretty much could be anything.  That image of all things consumerism is actually called Christmas Man in Germany.  That’s his name.  If that doesn’t say something about this ridiculous holiday I don’t know what does.  

That should be a reason to ridicule people for enjoying it shouldn’t it?  So why can’t I bring myself to do it?

Each Christmas I just saw more and more reason to love it because each yeah I loved her and the girls in a completely new way.

Then she and I blended out DNA together to make a whole new person.  This is his first Christmas.  We haven’t slept properly since he got here five months ago.  Oh, sleep, how I miss you.  

What have I become?

So we have an infant in our care.  And two eleven-year-old girls.  You know what’s a really good idea?  I can tell you what’s not a really good idea?  Hosting Christmas for her whole family and Scott and Vince.  

But we did it.  She was adamant.  She wanted his first Christmas to be perfect and full of family and the people he loved.

It was full of something.

Her brother showed up with her dad while we were still cooking.  The girls reacted predictably.  Christine greeted them like she hadn’t seen them in years.  She hugged them tightly and showed them some new trick she’d been failing to teach Freddy.  Carrie barely managed a hello.  She was doing something with her iPhone.  That Pokemon game maybe?  Who the fuck knows?

Scott and Vince showed up at midday.  Chrissie ran to the door to greet them followed closely by Freddy.  “Uncle Scott!  Uncle Vince!”  She squealed jumping into their arms.  

“Hey, sweetheart,”  Scott said in greeting.  He still couldn’t tell them apart.  It had been 7 years.  He used sweetheart as a safety net.  “Where’s the newbie.”

“He’s sleeping,”  Chrissie replied.

“Well, let’s go wake him up.”  Scott grinned.

“Don’t you dare wake him,”  I yelled.  “Trust me, give him half an hour he’ll be crying and shitting all over you.”

“Well, that’s charming.  I’m still going to wake him.”  Scott said.  He stopped to kiss her on the way through.  “Hey, you look amazing.”

“Thank you, Scott.  He’s down the hall.  First door on the left.  I will personally kill you if you wake him.”  She said.  She offered Vince a drink but he just said he goes where Scott goes.  

Despite the warning, Scott came out carrying the spawn a few minutes later.  “He was awake when I got in there.  I swear to god.”  Scott said, defecting the daggers we were staring at him.  “I changed his diaper.  That’s something right?”

“You look pretty natural there, Scott.  Don’t you think?”  She said nudging me.

And he really did.  He was holding the baby like he’d been doing it for years.  Way more comfortable with him that I ever felt and he was my kid.  They were staring at each other and making faces.  He looked really happy.  

“That’s good because we’ve got news,”  Vince said.

She dropped her knife and it fell to the ground, stabbing me in the fucking foot.  

That’s the Christmas I spent in the Emergency room.  Her brother, dad, and the girls stayed behind.  Carrie and Chrissie have a hospital phobia.  Justly earned.  Everyone else, however, came to the hospital with me.  

Turns out, Scott and Vince had put their names down to adopt a baby girl from China.  The process had finally gone through and they were flying out in the new year to go collect her.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people as excited about anything ever.  It totally stole my stabbed in the foot thunder.  

We were in the emergency room for eight fucking hours.  Did you know that Christmas has the highest mortality rate in America for the year?  

A couple of stitches and an entire day later we all moped back to our place.  Christine was beside herself and it took quite a while to calm her down.  I ended up just eating my cold Christmas dinner with her clinging to me like a baby koala.

Scott and Vince left just after dessert.  They had to do the Christmas run back up the five to LA and it would take them hours.  Her brother and dad helped clean up too.  God, was I glad for family at that point.  All that shit would have stayed out it if wasn’t for them.  They left at around ten that night.  We were exhausted.  We then struggled to get the progeny off to sleep for a couple of hours.  Finally falling into bed exhausted at midnight.

We just lay, side by side on our backs staring at the ceiling for a minute.

“This was a good Christmas wasn’t it?”  She said, slipping her hand into mine.  

“Are you kidding me?  You stabbed me in the fucking foot.”  

She laughed.  “I know.  That was my favorite bit too.”

I rolled her into a headlock and gave her a noogie.  When I let her go she snuggled into my shoulder and kissed me on my jaw.  

“You seriously had a good day today?”  I asked.

“Yeah.  We were together.  Bubs was well behaved.  You found out you’re going to be an uncle.  Oh man, the way you looked after Christine.”  She sighed.

“Well she was really scared what was I supposed to do, tell her to suck it up?”  I huffed.

“The guy I first met wouldn’t have known what to do.  He would have backed out of the room and left me to deal with it.”   

I shrugged.  “That guy wasn’t a dad.”

“No, he wasn’t.”  The way she said no drew it out for like four whole beats.  “You are though.  Not just because you are on paper.  You just are.”

“Hey you know how at the end of Harry Potter, Harry is married and he has those kids with ridiculous fuckin’ names?”  I asked.

She looked up with her brow scrunched.  “Are we really talking about Harry Potter?”

“Okay, I know.  But, he got those things because he didn’t have them as a kid.  He always wanted a family.  So Rowling gave him one.”  I said.  “I think before I thought I didn’t have a family because that was stupid and not for me.”

“And now?”  

“It was exactly for me.”

“Aww, aren’t you a sap?  Come here sappy and give your not-wife a kiss.”  She said, leaning up to me.  I kissed her.   It was slow and deep and once again she did that thing where she grazed her teeth over my bottom lip.  

I rolled her over so I was on top of her.  “Merry Christmas, not-wife.”

“Merry Christmas, not-husband.  Who by the way is fucking kidding himself if he thinks he’s getting laid tonight.”  She said.  

I kissed her down the side of her throat.  “But it’s Christmas.”

She made a little humming sound.  “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the Nativity story about getting laid.  I’m exhausted now get off.”

I rolled off her onto my back.  “Fine, but you owe me.  You stabbed me in the fucking foot you know?”

She started giggling.  “I know.  Totally awesome.  I don’t think I could have done that if I’d meant to.”

“You’re such a psychopath.”

“You love me.”

I sighed deeply.  “I do.”

Hey so guess who got laid that night?  Me.  That’s who.  You don’t need to hear about that though.  She was kinda right though.  It was a good day.  Maybe it would have been better without the hospital visit, but if you have to have one, I can think of worse ways to go than with a bunch of people you really love.

This time I felt festive.


End file.
